One type of right angle board-mounted electrical connector has a housing that is mounted on a circuit board and that has a mating end. The connector housing has several columns of contact positions where contacts are mounted (although some contact positions may not be occupied by a contact). Each contact has a socket end at a contact position and has a tail that extends down to a circuit board trace. Such connectors are commonly available in modules that each have six columns, with four contact positions in each column for a total of twenty-four contact positions.
Where a large number of contacts are required, the modules are placed end-to-end in a laterally-extending row. Where a very large number of contact positions is required, such as hundreds, the need to handle and mount each of many connector modules, or front modules, adds to the cost. The required number of contacts that may be required by a customer is unpredictable, so manufacturers have commonly produced only small modules with six columns of contact positions each. It is noted that customers generally do not want to have an oversized strip that has many more contact positions than the customer requires for a particular application, since the customer's circuit board may not hold a longer strip and a customer does not wish to pay for many unused contact positions.
Terminal strips formed of front modules, are often stabilized by stabilizer rear modules that lie behind the front modules and that shield the contact tails while increasing the stability of the modules. One approach is for a manufacturer to produce meter-long stabilizer bars, and to cut the bar into sections equal to the length of the row of connector modules. The requirement for cutting reduces flexibility and adds to the cost for initial molding and for precision cutting. In another arrangement for a stabilizer, rear modules are provided, that are each equal to the length of a small front module. This results in the need for a large number of rear modules as well as front modules. Also, the short stabilizer modules cannot connect the short connector modules together to stabilize them on one another.
A system for providing connector modules, or front modules, which minimized the number of individual modules required to provide the desired number of contact positions with only a small excess, and which minimize the number of different module sizes that must be manufactured and inventoried by a manufacturer, would be desirable. If such a system permitted rear modules to be provided so a minimum number could be used, chosen from a limited number of different sizes, with the rear modules connecting adjacent front modules together, such a system would also be desirable.